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Last Updated June 22, 2005
Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat first elected in 1982, is New Mexico's junior senator. He has a good political lineage: His father was a professor at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, and his uncle was campaign manager for longtime (1949-73) Senator Clinton Anderson. He graduated from Harvard and Stanford Law School, then returned to New Mexico. A year out of law school, Bingaman was counsel to the state constitutional convention; later he went into law practice in Santa Fe with former Governor Jack Campbell. Bingaman's wife, Anne, started a highly successful law practice of her own that helped finance his first campaigns; she was assistant attorney general for antitrust in the first Clinton term. In a small state, bright young people like Jeff Bingaman can rise fast. He ran for attorney general in 1978 and won; in 1982, he ran against Senator Harrison Schmitt, the former astronaut, also from Silver City, and won with 54%, partly because it was a recession year, but also because of Schmitt's misleading and negative ads. Bingaman has followed a course in the Senate much like that of Clinton Anderson, who used his influence behind the scenes to great effect but shunned national publicity--so much so that Roll Call called him "preternaturally reticent." He got seats on two committees of great importance to the state, Armed Services and Energy. From these seats Bingaman has had some say over New Mexico's Los Alamos and Sandia labs. On the Energy committee, he became the top-ranking Democrat in 1999. Then, after Jim Jeffords switched parties, Bingaman became chairman in June 2001, with the responsibility of coming up with an energy bill in response to the Bush energy proposals. The House passed an energy bill in August, but Bingaman did not present his own version until September. It ignored the controversial proposal for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and left the issue of raising CAFE auto mileage standards to the Commerce committee. He wanted to encourage more nuclear energy and reauthorize the Price-Anderson Act, which shields plant operators from liability, to require reporting of emissions from so-called greenhouse gases and to give FERC authority over electricity transmission systems; he said the administration and House version had too much in the way of production incentives and too little on renewable energy and energy efficiency. But the administration approach, including ANWR drilling, seemed to have majority support on the committee and in October he withdrew his bill. Republicans, including New Mexico's Pete Domenici, were furious at this and at Bingaman and Tom Daschle's decision to bring the issue to the floor without committee consideration--a highly unusual tactic for such complex legislation. Floor debate began in February 2002 and went on for six weeks. Bingaman was beaten by a 62-38 margin on his proposal to increase CAFE mileage standards in cars and SUVs to 35 miles per gallon but kept his proposal to require that 10% of electricity be produced by renewable energy sources by 2020. Bingaman accepted amendments on pipeline safety and maintained his provisions, opposed by environmental restriction groups, to increase the use of nuclear power and promote research in clean coal technology in New Mexico labs. He got in his provisions to encourage more oil and gas development on Indian reservations. The conference committee was delayed in June, as Bingaman claimed he should be conference chairman because the House side had chaired the conference on the Alaska Power Administration Sale Act in 1995; the House's Billy Tauzin argued that the last relevant conference was in 1992, when the Senate side got the chair, and that he should be chairman, and prevailed. The conferees met periodically, but never reached agreement; the bill died after the November election. Democrats lost their majority, and Domenici became chairman and Bingaman ranking minority member--the first time in history senators from the same state held the top two spots on a committee. This time Domenici put together an energy bill which, without ANWR drilling, passed the Senate in July 2003. When Domenici went into one-on-one negotiations with Tauzin before the conference committee met, Bingaman said his procedure was "deeply flawed." That fall the Senate and House remained in conflict over protecting oil companies for liability for the additive MTBE; the House insisted on it and the Senate wouldn't accept it. Domenici said Bingaman was to blame for the failure of the bill; Bingaman said it was Domenici's fault for keeping conference committee members out of negotiations. In April 2004 Bingaman wrote the White House with 13 suggestions for executive action to lower gasoline prices. In September Bingaman walked out of a committee markup to block approval of two bills sought by Lisa Murkowski, who was in a tight race for reelection. Bingaman is a physical fitness buff, and with fellow runner Bill Frist sponsored a bill to combat obesity by providing grants for schools and communities to raise awareness of the importance of exercise and healthy diets. He sponsored a bill to bar the selection of New Mexico as a premium support site under the 2003 Medicare prescription drug act. Bingaman and Gordon Smith called in February 2005 for a commission to study Medicaid and opposed spending cuts. On the class action bill he offered an amendment in February 2005 to give federal judges guidance for certifying class action cases based on state consumer law; House leaders were insisting that the bill not be amended, and Bingaman's amendment was rejected 61-38. He voted against the confirmation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales because, he said, Gonzales had tolerated or encouraged loosening the definition of torture. Many of his bills have a New Mexico angle. He sought more funding for the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission and urged the U.S. to help investigate the murders of more than 300 women in Juarez, Mexico. With Pete Domenici he sponsored a bill in 2003 for $975 million to improve border security and infrastructure. Bingaman and Domenici got into the omnibus appropriation $10 million to the descendants of Hispanic homesteaders who had been paid only a few dollars an acre in the 1940s for land that became part of the Los Alamos Laboratory. When the U.S. Attorney for New Mexico said that the Pueblo Act of 1924 left certain pueblo areas "prosecution-free zones," Bingaman and Domenici in 2005 sponsored a bill to amend the 1924 law. They also worked together in 2004 and 2005 to secure provisions that would bar the Air Force from retiring 10 F-117s currently assigned to New Mexico's Holloman Air Force Base. Bingaman, Domenici and Tom Udall succeeded in making Santa Fe, Taos and Rio Arriba Counties a National Heritage Area, to provide funding for preservation of cultural sites, and in designating Manhattan Project sites as a National Historical Park. Bingaman faced his most serious challenge in the Republican year of 1994, when Republican Colin McMillan, a rancher and former assistant Defense secretary, spent over $1 million of his own money and attacked Bingaman's vote for Clinton's 1993 tax increase and for what McMillan said was a vote to increase grazing fees. Bingaman ads boasted of his work on defense conversion, national education standards and education technology. Bingaman won 54%-46%. In 2000 he faced former Congressman Bill Redmond, who won the heavily Democratic 3d District in a 1997 special election and then lost to Tom Udall in 1998. Redmond called for tax cuts and charged that Bingaman should have worked for forest-thinning earlier. Bingaman talked about bringing high-wage jobs to the state, improving education and expanding access to health care. People heard more of what Bingaman was saying: he spent $2.56 million, Redmond only $639,000. Bingaman won 62%-38%; he lost only six counties and ran 14% ahead of Al Gore. In February 2005 Bingaman announced that he was running for a fifth term. Tom Benavides, a former Democrat who served in the state House and Senate and ran against Pete Domenici in 1990, immediately announced he would run. Santa Fe City Councilor David Pfeffer was also said to be interested in this race. Congressman Steve Pearce ruled out a race; Congresswoman Heather Wilson was said to be considering it. New Mexico Republicans said they would use Bingaman's vote against Gonzales against him.
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